What’s In Your Tool Kit?

Pastor Narelle emphasizes the importance of recognizing and using spiritual gifts, comparing them to tools needed for a thriving garden. Drawing from 1 Corinthians 12, she encourages everyone to embrace their unique gifts, reminding them that each person plays an essential role in the church. She urges the congregation to overcome insecurity and serve others, fostering unity and fulfilling God's purpose.

Transcript

Who's ready for the Word? Narelle, are you ready for the Word? You're going to be great, honey. You're going to do a great job. So my beautiful wife, Narelle, she's one of our pastors on our team and she does a whole bunch of things. She's a wonderful woman of God and she's going to come and bring the Word. Illustrated sermon this morning. Why don't we give her a hand as she comes on up. Over to you, honey.

Thank you, Pastor Adrian. Every now and again. I'll call him pastor once a year. That's right, Jen. I have been. I have been doing it. Who's been doing the gardening? Springtime. Yeah, yeah. There's a few of us out there. A few green thumbs. I've got probably half a green thumb, quarter of a green thumb. Who's got a green thumb? Put your thumb up if you've got a green thumb. Yeah, half a green thumb. Who loves their garden? Oh, more. Yeah. A lot of us trying out there to have a green thumb. Who watched the game yesterday? Oh, not many. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. That was a, in terms of scoring, that was a washout. That was just like the rain. That was just done. Done by, what, quarter time, half time. That was done. I'm like, I walked out. I went, I've got a message to prepare. It's way more important than this game. I already know who's going to win.

'Now, dear brothers and sisters, regarding your question about the special abilities the Spirit gives us. I don’t want you to misunderstand this. You know that when you were still pagans, you were led astray and swept along in worshiping speechless idols. So I want you to know that no one speaking by the Spirit of God will curse Jesus, and no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us. A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. ' 1 Corinthians 12:1-7 (NLT)

Anyway, why don't you turn with me in your Bibles. We're going to have it on the screen or you can look it up on your phone if you have the Bible app. 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and from verse one. I'm just going to move some of my props. It says, Now dear brothers and sisters, regarding your question about the special abilities the Spirit gives us, I don't want you to misunderstand this. You know that when you were still pagans, you were led astray and swept along in worshiping speechless idols. So I want you to know that no one speaking by the Spirit of God will curse Jesus, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. In verse four, there are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us. A spiritual gift is given to each of us so that we can help each other.

Why don't we pray. Holy Spirit, I thank you for your Word this morning. I thank you for the seeds that are going to be sown because of the power of your Word, and I thank you for much fruit to come from these seeds, from your Word in Jesus' name. Everybody said, Amen, Amen.

Well, who knows, we are now living in a world that has and is becoming more and more fragmented.People seem more and more separated, yeah, isolated. Psychologists are now saying that the next big health, public health issue that we're going to face, we're starting to face, is loneliness. It's quite sad, but in this world, I believe that the church is a refuge. It can be a refuge. It's more than a building, yeah. It's more than a service on a Sunday. It's more than an organization. It's a community of people, yeah. Church is a place where people come together.A place where everyone, not just the pastor, loves and takes care of one another. Everyone takes care of one another. A place where every person matters. Isn't that good? That's us. That's the family of God. That's who we are meant to be as the church, yeah.

But we ask often, don't we, as the church, how can we help this fragmented, increasingly fragmented, isolated, lonely world full of people? In fact, you might be sitting in this place right now, and you feel lonely, you feel isolated, yet you're here in the family of God. It's very easy to slip into the mentality of our society, which is all about me, myself, and I, and not about others. We have, praise God, we have a few great charity groups out there that are all about serving community in churches, and some of them are not Christian groups, but they've gotten a revelation. We need each other. We actually need each other. We need to be serving each other, helping each other, helping the vulnerable, the isolated, the lonely.

As you can see here, I have a few different tools. I'll get this out of the way. Some of you can't see. I've grown to love gardening. I'm not excellent at it just yet. I've learned that watering is really important. But I brought some of the tools that I sometimes use, some of the tools I don't use, some of the tools I should use, but all of these tools must be used for a good garden. Now, you can probably have a look and go, there's way more tools than there are. Yes, I know, I'm saving up money for those tools. I need those tools. But there's so many different types. So, you have the little spade, tiny little thing like this, right? How cute. I love this thing. This is so cute. I use this a lot, actually.This, I don't know what this is because I never use it. I probably should use it. And it's actually really important because it protects me from the UV. You can take a photo of me. You've got to take a photo of me in this hat. Who goes out in their garden and puts on this? One of the most important. See, there's some good, faithful gardeners, smart people. I always forget this. I try not to forget my Merry People boots because they're number one comfortable, Josh understands, and they're great in the garden. You need your boots to protect your feet from getting all dirty. Who goes out there in the mornings in your pyjamas and just puts on slides and you haven't even got socks on and you end up pulling weeds and you're just like, well, now I need to clean myself. I wasn't wearing my boots.There's so many things. Then there's the biggest spade. Then there's the gigantic one. Who's used all of these different things? Aren't they good? I love my gardening. All these tools, gloves. How many times I forget to put on my gloves and then my nails are full of dirt. I'm just like, these are good. These are needed. These secateurs, I think this is probably the one I use the most. Yeah, very good, very good. There's a couple of items on here are probably my favourite. I think because they're a bit bigger, but they're super powerful and dangerous. Who loves those? Michael, last week you're talking about fire. Yeah, I think we can be friends because I like some fire and I like my tools. That's a good one and this one.Now, this is a power tool. Tell me people who loves the power tools in this place. Amen. Put that on lock so no one plays that. There's so many different things on here and we need them. We need them. I need them for my garden. There's tools there that I use. There's some tools I hardly use, but I've realised I actually need them all. My garden needs them all.

So, I've actually titled my message today, What's in Your Toolkit? And I want to talk today about spiritual gifts based on that scripture that we just read, the importance of spiritual gifts. God has gifted every person in this place with a spiritual gift.Do you believe that? Every one of you has a spiritual gift and the tools are your spiritual gift. The garden is your church. Who can picture that? Who loves that? Those that love gardening, you need to go out into your gardens and you're just like, yeah, what are my tools? You're all going to go look at your tools now, your gardeners. Oh, I like the tool that Narelle's got. I'm going to go buy that. I think I need that. But what spiritual tools have you got? What has God gifted you with? He's gifted all of us with spiritual gifts. And I believe in this scripture, we actually find the answer to our problem of loneliness, to our problem of isolation right here, right here in this scripture. So the first thing that I believe we need to know, everyone has a spiritual gift. It says in verse six and seven of this chapter, God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us. A spiritual gift is given to each of us so that we can help each other. Each of us, all of us, he's not going some of us or just the ones that are just super, super gifted. All of us, each of us have a gift. Everyone has a spiritual gift. God doesn't give you a gift only for you to then go and hide it or to not even discover what it is. So maybe there's a number of you in the room, you haven't even discovered what your spiritual gift is that God's given you. God has, I want to encourage you, God has given you, come on church, those of you that have worked out some of your spiritual gifts, I want you to encourage people around you. You have a spiritual gift. You all have a spiritual gift given by God. He didn't, he doesn't just wave like a carrot in front of you only to tease you about gifts. Oh, look at them. Look how good they are. Oh, oh, wouldn't this, wouldn't it be good if you could do this? He doesn't. He's actually planted a passion and a dream in your heart because he's gifted you and empowered you to act in that gift, to operate in that gift, in the family of God.

'The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit. Yes, the body has many different parts, not just one part. ' 1 Corinthians 12:12-14 (NLT)

Everyone has a spiritual gift. In 1 Corinthians 12, verse 12 to 14, it says, the human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. Some of us are Jews, some of us are Gentiles, some are slaves and some are free, but we have all been baptized into one body by one spirit and we all share the same spirit. Yes, the body has many different parts, not just one part. It's very easy in society, in this world, even in church life to point to a role in life or a title in life and go, they're needed. And immediately you're saying to yourself, but I'm not. I need a revelation and we all need a revelation that we all have been gifted by God. God has given each one of you a spiritual gift. Do you know what it is? Have you worked it out? Have you even prayed about it and said, God, what have you gifted me with?

You know, I grew up in church and I saw many gifts in operation, spiritual gifts in operation in my church. I grew up in a Baptist church, so blessed to be in that church and an amazing church family. But I watched so many different gifts of the Holy Spirit operating in that church, which was great. I got to learn and grow, but I often, and some of us fall into that trap, I saw gifts in others, but I didn't see a gift in myself. It's so easy to see it in someone else, isn't it? Oh, Cle, your voice. Wow. Amazing. I wish I had your voice. That's so beautiful. We can easily point at another person and see an obvious gift in their life, but God's given you a gift. We've all got gifts. Do you know that you are gifted by God? And I grew up and I, as I grew up and I got older, I had my kids, my kids' leaders that I was in kids' church with, and then I had my youth pastors and leaders, and they're all encouraging me over the years, just as I grew up, encouraging me to be who God had made me to be and to find my gift. So, I never felt isolated. I never felt lonely because I was in a church family, but who knows, even in a beautiful, amazing, powerful church family, the devil can get in with a lie and go, you're not needed. You don't, you don't, you're not gifted. You don't have a gift. What's your gift? It's not like theirs. There's a super powerful and really needed, but Nerelle, about you, you, you're not gifted. There's no gifts there. I struggled with insecurities for years, but I had people around me because I stayed put in my church and I grew up in my church and I had people encouraging me. And slowly, it doesn't happen overnight, as many of us know, slowly over time, you discover, oh, oh, maybe I can sing. Well, maybe if I work on it, I could, I think that God's gifted me. Maybe I can worship lead. I had a passion stir in my heart and I realized God's actually gifted me, not just gifted me, but called me in that gift, called me in that gift. And I saw myself in the future as a 15-year-old. I could see myself in the future and God spoke to me in that, in my giftings. You're going to be doing this. I've gifted you in this. And I could see it. Did it make me nervous? Yeah. Did it make me excited? Yeah. Didn't happen the next day. Didn't happen the day after that, but over time as I grew and I spent time with my church family and the people around me, not always pastors, just sometimes my mates in church, hanging out, they would encourage me in my gift. I could encourage them in their gift. I realized I've got a gift. God's given me a gift, my spiritual gift.And he has given you one too. Just like I have tools to help my garden grow, so I have spiritual gifts to help the church grow. Can you say that about yourself today? I want to encourage you to say that. Just as God's given me tools for other parts of my life, like gardening, I have been given by God a spiritual gift and that helps the church grow. Yeah.

Now, we're going to do a little exercise around this point that everyone has a spiritual gift.So, I want you to turn to your neighbor, preferably someone that you came with or someone that you know. I want you to turn to your neighbor and I want you to ask this question, what do you think my spiritual gift is? Now, I've listed up here, so you can have a look at all the different spiritual gifts. It could be multiple. I want you to at least land on one. One of these might be multiple gifts that God's given you. I want you to talk to your neighbor.Come on, turn around. Turn around. It might be the person behind you, the person beside you.I want you to ask them, what is my spiritual gift or gifts? Have you had a chat? Has every person been able to ask the other person and you've gotten an answer from another person? I think this, some of you might not even know each other. Here's an opportunity for the prophetic gift to operate. If you don't know them and you can say, I believe this is your gift.Word of knowledge from God. There's a few out there, hey. There's a few gifts, wisdom, prophecy, knowledge, serving, faith, exhortation, leadership, teaching, evangelism, administration.We love those administrators. We need those administrators. Mercy, tongues, identifying spirits, healing, giving, interpret tongues, interpreting tongues, shepherding, miracles, hospitality, and discernment. There's so many. I think you can all land on one, at least one. Maybe there's a little passion growing inside of you, but I want you to come away from this message knowing I have a gift given to me by God, a spiritual gift.Everyone has a spiritual gift. I need you to go away and know that. Even if you've got questions, I want you to ask the people around you in your world, Christians in your world, and ask them. That's why I wanted you to ask each other, what do you think my spiritual gift is? Because sometimes you can think about something. You can think of what it might be for you, but you actually need another person's perspective because they see your life in a slightly different way to the way you see your own life, is often the case. They'll come up with something. You'll be like, oh, really? Do you think I'm a merciful person? Now, you might not get 10 out of 10 or 100% in an exam on one of these things, but you feel that that is something that draws your heart every time you're with people. Every time you're with another person, this gift is stirring. It's like bubbling in you going, I need to operate in this. I need to function in this. That's the Holy Spirit stirring you. Come on. Come on. Steve's a perfect example. I know he's got more than one spiritual gift, but one of his biggest ones is evangelizing, speaking out to all the unsaved out there in our community. He can't help himself. He goes to the petrol station and tries to get someone saved, paying for his petrol. He's amazing, but he can't help himself. He stirs himself up in the Spirit. This bubbling goes on. Every time he's even going to be with other people, and he's hoping it's going to be a person that needs Jesus, he knows God's going to use him.He doesn't shove the Bible down their throat. He's funny. If you ever spend any time with Steve, oh my gosh, you come away laughing your head off with sore stomach muscles like me.He's so funny, and he makes it real. What is your gift that God's given you? You've got one. That's so good. Anyway, the second thing I believe we need to know, and it's in this Scripture, your gift is needed. In verse seven, a spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. To each of us, so all of us, so we can help each other. You are needed. Your gift is needed. Who's ever said to themselves, oh, I'm not needed. I'm not really needed. They don't really need me. They'll be fine without me. It'll just go on. The show will go on without me. They don't need me. Who's ever said that to themselves? It's easy to do that. They don't need me. They've got plenty of other people that are way more gifted than me. You are needed. Everyone is needed in the body of Christ. In fact, God wants all to... He's not willing that any should perish. He wants everyone in the family of God, we all need each other. Your gift is needed.

The Greek word for this section of the Scripture that says, so we can help each other, is sinfero. It means for the common good that all may benefit, for the common good that all may benefit. So you are needed to benefit others. How many people come to church, and I've been guilty of this plenty of days, come in going, I wonder what God's going to say to me today. Now, there's nothing wrong with that. God's going to speak to us. He wants to, right? That's fine. But we stop there. It's all about me, myself and I, and what I'm going to get out of church. When was the last time you said, gee, I wonder how God's going to use me today? With an air of confidence, not arrogance, but confidence going, God, how am I going to be used today? Who am I going to bless today? There's people that I know are coming to church. Some of them I know them, some of them I don't. But I know that you can use my gift to bless someone today. I'm needed. Church isn't going to function without me. But we don't say that, do we? We go, oh, it'll be fine. They don't need me. They probably won't even miss me. That's what some of us have said. They won't even miss me. They won't even know I'm not there. But we do, and the body of Christ is harmed. It's in danger when we do not operate in our gift. When you do not function in the gift God's given you, you're damaging the body.

'If the foot says, “I am not a part of the body because I am not a hand,” that does not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear says, “I am not part of the body because I am not an eye,” would that make it any less a part of the body? If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear? Or if your whole body were an ear, how would you smell anything? ' 1 Corinthians 12:15-17

It's like when, and I'll read this scripture. It's amazing. If the foot says, in verse 15, the same chapter, if the foot says, I'm not a part of the body because I'm not a hand, this is ridiculous, isn't it? But it's what we do that does not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear says, I'm not a part of the body because I'm not an eye, would that make it any less a part of the body? If the whole body were an eye, just picture that, one big ball. It's hilarious. I think of many movies, animated movies I've seen, big eye. If the whole body were an eye, how would you hear? Or if your whole body were an ear, how would you smell anything?

You know what? Sometimes the smallest things, the smallest things are the most important. You see this? This tiny little, what do you call it? A shovel? It's not a shovel. It's a teaspoon. Yeah, like a teaspoon. Teaspoons are important in the kitchen. How small are they? We need teaspoons. I don't know if anyone said teaspoon, but that's what I heard. This, I use this tool in the garden more than any, I did say my secateurs because I love them, but actually I'm using this more than anything. It's the smallest, seemingly most insignificant of all the tools. But we think we need to be this. We think, whoa, Pastor Adrian. But you know, not to say anything against my husband, I hardly use this. Wasn't meant to be personal, but I don't use that very much, but this little thing. So there are things like in the human body, you know when you hurt your little pinky toe or you break it and you go, oh my gosh, I never realized I needed that toe. Yeah, and then you realize how much you need it when you lose it.

So when we're missing your gift, we're harmed as the body of Christ. We're not getting you. We're not getting the gift God's placed in you. And we're going to retrain our thinking because some of us sitting here going, yeah, but, yeah, but, yeah, but, and you got all the reasons why you're not functioning in your gift that maybe you don't even know what your gift is. And it's all insecurity. It's all just, it's self-deprecating. It's voices from your past are overwhelming your mind and you need to retrain your mind, renew your mind, it says in the word, renew it with the word of God, change your thinking. I'm needed. It's not an arrogance. It's a self-awareness of who God's created us to be. Some of us will be operating in a smaller way than others. Some stand on this stage and you see some gifts operating in this church because they look like the big sores. They look like the big loud, wow, we need them. We actually need your smaller gifts, not smaller, less important, but the seemingly smaller, we need those gifts more for the actual health of the body, the actual health of our church. So never minimize your gift, never minimize because you are needed. Your gift is needed.

The devil loves to isolate you, bring you into a place of loneliness and tell you that you're not needed. You might say, Narelle, I'm not important. I'm not needed like you. Yes, you are. You know, it was never God's intention for Pastor Trevor to do all the pastoral care in this church. Yet many look to him as that and he does an amazing job, let me tell you, in God's strength, doesn't he? But God, it was never God's intention for him to pator everyone in this church. It was never God's intention for all, just the pastors, for Pastor Adrian, for me, myself, for Alex, for Pastor Fua, to visit all the sick, to comfort all the bereaved, to reach out to all the lost, to teach all of the newly converted. We are not the spiritual doctor that you come to for your healing or to fix your life. Jesus is your spiritual doctor. Now we can help, we will pray, we will love, as you know, we will do what we can in the gift God's given us, right? But it was never the job of the pastor, the pastors to do all the work of the ministry. That's actually your job. Our job is to equip you and go, go do it. Do the work of God, do what God's called you to do, function in the gift God's given you. The body can't function with just a head. It would look idiotic. It would look stupid if it was just the head.And the rest of the body's just, imagine if you can picture a human body with the head looking amazing, functioning perfectly. I feel like I'm speaking in a UK accent. I look at Gabby and I'm just, I speak, I speak English. I feel like tea and biscuits, like I don't know why it comes over me, this anointing from the UK. British, I'm British. No, that doesn't go British, it's Italian. It was never our job as the pastors to do all the work of the ministry. He wants you to function in your gift. You are gifted. Imagine, I want you to picture a body with this beautiful, amazing head and then a sick, from the neck down, sick, just dilapidated, weak, no muscle, just skeleton, but the head looks amazing. Do you think that body can function? Yeah, yeah, you can answer. This is the answer. No, no, no, it can't. That's not a healthy body. It's like, well, the head looks good. That is like us. You need to function.

1. Everyone Has A Spiritual Gift

First point, we are all gifted by God. All have a spiritual gift and your gift is needed. I want you to catch this. It's a simple message, but you need to catch it. If you are going to function, abide in, live with the family of God, in the church of God, you can't just come on a Sunday for a service, tick the box, thank you, Jesus, go home. You are not functioning in the body of Christ. You're just coming to a meeting on a Sunday with people that you sort of have a few things you believe the same about, but we're not living as a family if you're not functioning in your gift and your gift is needed.

As pastors, we want you to know what your spiritual gifts are and where you enjoy serving. We want you to know how to have a satisfying devotional life. We want you to know how to explain your faith. We want you to understand and love people. We want you to be an example in your workplace and school. We want you to build a strong family. We want you to be a servant leader, to develop a positive attitude in life. We want you to know how to disciple a new Christian and we want you to read and understand the Bible. You ask, well, how can I do all of that? How can I grow? You know what? We have so many opportunities in our church for you to grow, for me to grow. I will keep growing if I just keep going to Alpha courses. I love Alpha so much. I love it so much and I never get bored of Alpha and I have been a Christian for nearly 51 years of my life, saved at seven. I never get sick of the foundational truths of our faith and how to share it with other people and how to see other people grow and flourish in God. You know, we run Alpha.

Now, next term, term four, you've got flies on your seats.We're going to be doing Alpha, the second part of Alpha, Alpha Plus, the Bible course, the culture course, where you can grow and discover more about who God's called you to be. And in the culture course, one of those sessions, you will be doing a spiritual gift survey. Now, that's a bonus just to go and see. You get the rest of it as well, but that, the tip of the iceberg, you get to do this survey. Who's done one of those spiritual gift surveys? I've done about probably five in my, at least five in my lifetime. Don't just do it once. Keep doing it. You can get them free online. You just look them up and you find that, oh wow, it's about 110 questions and you can sort, you can work out, oh God, I seem to fit into these gifts. I seem to fit into shepherding and mercy and teaching. They seem to be my top three. So, you can work out what it is God has gifted you in. So, I want you to encourage, I want to encourage you, sign up to one of our courses. You might say, I've been a Christian for donkey's years. I don't need any of them. Well, I've been a Christian for donkey's years and I need it every time I do it. And I might be helping facilitate it. But you know what? I grow every single time. Every single time I do Alpha, it strengthens my faith. I realize what God's called me to, who he's made me to be, how much he loves me, how much he loves my family, my church family.

So, why, I'm going to come to a close. So, I ask if the band can come. Why come to church? You've probably asked yourself that question. You know why we come? We come to celebrate together what God is doing through us, through you. We come to grow the spiritual gifts that God's given us and we come to help others with those gifts. That's why you come to church. You know, there's someone in our church you may not know and her name is Lisa. And she comes to everything that she can come to. But she's fairly quiet, introverted personality. But nearly every single time she comes, because she can't help herself, she comes with a gift or a present for someone. And just, she can't help herself. She just, and it's, it doesn't matter what the size of it. She just, she wants to give. So, she comes every time. Might be a box of chocolates. And then, do you realize that the reason those toilets are so clean every week is because she comes in on Thursdays, some weeks, and cleans those toilets for us. She texts us every week going, is there anything that I can come in and do for you this week? And she works. But many of you wouldn't even know who she is. She is functioning, Lisa is functioning in her God-given gifts. She is giving because she can't help but give. She just wants to give and love others. And she wants to serve. She serves. She's functioning in her gift. You know, we have another amazing lady in our church. And her name is Helena. And she works full-time. But she comes here every Thursday and runs the traditional service in her spare time, her only day off, because she cares about people. Her gift, one of her gifts definitely would be shepherding, because she cares about the flock. She wants to care for people. She loves people. I know she does way more than just come on a Thursday. She reaches out. She makes phone calls to people to see how they're doing, to care for them, to pray for them. She visits the sick. Even this morning, I found her down in the staff kitchen helping someone. It was Greg with his bandage, helping refix his bandage on his head down there, serving, loving, caring for another. And you wouldn't even know, most of us wouldn't even know that these things happen, that these people do these things. But you know what? The body, the family of God, the church needs every one of us. Everyone has a spiritual gift, and your gift is needed. I want you to get those two. So what is in your toolkit? That's what I want to ask. What's in your toolkit? Don't compare. Don't play that comparison game. You can compare maybe to inspire you, but often comparison drags you down. Don't play the comparison game. Ask God, God, what have you gifted me with? And often the way to find that out, other than doing a spiritual gift survey, is to look at your passions. What do you love when it comes to interacting with other people? What do you love? How do you love to converse? What do you love to do for people? What comes naturally? Maybe it's come naturally to you your whole life. I want you to think about that and say, God, please use me. Use me.

I want you to turn to your neighbor. This is the last little exercise, and I want that same neighbor or someone different, if you know that works, and ask them, how is my gift needed? You might have answered the question, what is my gift? How is my gift needed? Ask them that question. It's a vulnerable question. How is my gift needed? Maybe you don't feel needed. I'm going to pray for you today. Maybe you don't know what your gift is. I'm going to pray for you today. Maybe you feel lonely and isolated. We're going to pray for you today. When you come on a Sunday or a Saturday night to any church service, I want you to flip the lie that says, I'm not getting what I need, to saying, I have a gift and I'm needed. We can fall into that trap of saying, I'm not getting it. I'm not at church. I'm not getting what I need. I'm not getting what I need. That's a lie from the devil. Flip that and say, I have a needed. I have a gift and I'm needed. Amen.

Thank you, Jesus. Why don't we pray? Lord Jesus, Lord, I just pray, God, show people what their gift is or gifts are, Lord, that you've given them because you've gifted every one of us, Lord, spiritual gifts. Thank you, Lord. May they know that they are needed. In this big family of God, they are needed. May they know that today if they're feeling isolated and lonely, God, I pray a family of God will come around them and pray that they would reach out, reach out to another person. They wouldn't stay in their isolated place. They'd realize that they need their family around them and that they are needed in this place, that they have a gift to give the body of Christ. Lord, I thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for your word of truth into our hearts and our lives. May it bear much fruit this morning. May it bear much fruit as we go from this place and dwell on these things, Lord God. Thank you, God, in your mighty name. Everybody said, amen. Amen.

Why don't we give Narelle a great hand. Well done, honey. And I'm proud to say that I have used none of these tools for a long, long time. Every now and then I do. That was really great. You know, one of the things that sticks in my heart on this, sometimes you can, you know, the church can be a place where you go, you see all the needs and say, we need you, we need you. I've been thinking about this of late and I'd prefer it to put it like this. We don't need you. We want you. You know, we got so many wonderful people that serve and we don't need you to serve. You can just come along and enjoy. But we want you because you're going to be, I promise you, if you do it in the right way, you're going to be blessed. And I know in my heart, I think God says that to us. He goes, I don't need you. I want you. I want to be in relationship with you. And that's what the church should be. It's like, we're not desperate. If you don't help, the whole place is going to fall apart. Oh no, it won't. We've got great teams and everyone's doing an amazing job. But oh my goodness, I want you to be involved. Narelle wants you to be involved. We want you to be part of this family. You're going to be blessed. You're going to be used by God and it's going to increase your life. I want to say thank you to everyone who has that heart and is already serving. And for those of you who've got some sort of gone, I don't know about me and all that. Can I encourage you? We want you. We want you to be in greater relationship. We want your gift in this church. We want others to be blessed because of you. And I'm believing that the greatest days of our church are ahead of us because of you, because of you, not because of me or Narelle or the team. So God's good, isn't he? That was a good morning in church. I enjoyed that.So we're going to have morning tea. It's raining, so don't go get wet too quickly. Stick around, have morning tea with us.

Let me pray for you as we go. Lord, God, I thank you for your wonderful people. This church is a wonderful, wonderful community of faith, Lord. So many beautiful, wonderful people, Lord. And I pray each of them would know that you want them in relationship with you, that they're wanted in this church, God, and that you've got a place for them to serve you, to serve others. And together, we're going to change lives for eternity. We thank you. Bless your people as they go. In Jesus' name, everyone said. Amen. God bless you guys. Have a great rest of the day. We'll see you again next week.